After a good home cooked dinner (second major spousal gift of the day), it was a couple hours in the garage dressing out the boom for duty tomorrow. The new outboard end sheave box, and the mast-connect toggle system came out great. Reefing the three clews will be much better this time around.

Stepping it back to the morning, Raf the trucker showed up early! Minor snafu about “no honey, when he says cash that doesn’t mean you can write a check”, and who knew you can get 2grand in Benjamins from the ATM now? The mast ended up sharing with three crew coach boats, a jet ski, a new MotoGuzzi and a small Harley. This guy takes great care of the products and his clients. What a huge relief that was.

The Bay Marine project manager forklifted us off that trailer on to mast carts and we were sent to fetch Ravenswing while they worked another rig and the dock cleared. It was about 11:30 when we actually started unpacking, cleaning and dressing out the bare mast. Jeanne brought the parts I had left on the kitchen floor, then continued on to Alameda where the Harken mast head sheaves were being erroneously delivered to the Bay Marine (Svendsens) headquarters instead of their Richmond boat yard. Thank goodness they were found same-day, and we got those three halyards in. Jim, Carlos and I finished at 4:30. And that includes numerous employees coming over to talk about what a ‘bad ass mast this is’.

For Keith and RickW, here’s the red loctite on the huge Wichard standing rigging shackle. Then lashing with 1/8″ amsteel dyneema. Look how nice the hound turned out; after I left CompEng the owner Ted made a perfect press-fit steel bushing to exact fit the shackle pin. Another element of how everything on this mast is top shelf.

Now a product plug for SailTimer. This 100% solar powered and Bluetooth wireless anemometer (wind station) creates an always-on NMEA1803 signal every second, including its own internal gps. This means the unit doesn’t care at all about mast rotation! The workmanship is fantastic – the cups look very strong, the balance is extraordinary and sensitive. I hope it works as well as it looks on the ground. For $350 it does not come with a display, but you use your phone/tablet/e-reader/chart plotter with the app of your choice. Skipping that whole rotating mast compensation issue is totally worth it.

Ok- mast and boom are ready for the 8am crane appointment. Figuring a few hours to get the main and jib back in place, we hope to sail Ravenswing tomorrow afternoon. If any locals want a maiden voyage reprisal, plan on getting to our normal Marina Bay dock by noon, and call me in advance. Otherwise, let me know when you want to go out; we’ve got a lot of pent up sailing to do before the winter rains come.